Sunday, January 6, 2008

Ukrainian Christmas Eve.

Tonight was Ukrainian Christmas Eve and we celebrated it with my brother and his family. It was my first time driving to the city as Seth had a high fever and stayed home. Of course, I couldn't do it without my brother who helped me with the kids and parked my car.Of course, as soon as David walked in the door, he went right for a guitar which I had to confiscate from him shortly afterwards as he accidentally hit Julia with it (by the way, Taras, it is behind the leather chair in the living room). So, for the rest of the evening he used a tennis racket for a guitar.

Cousin Daria was a great host making sure that Julia eats all her food. Here, she is forcefully shoveling cookies into Julia's mouth.

Later, she was showing off her knowledge of Ukrainian carols and putting me to shame.

After some caroling, the kids were marching and dancing. Surprisingly, David wanted to hold Marko's hands who didn't understand why he was bothered by someone shorter than him. David was getting back his own medicine.

All the kids wore embroidered shirts and/or dress which are part of traditional Ukrainian costumes . I embroidered Julia's dress and David wore Marko's shirt that he had outgrown. I was convinced that there was no way I could dress my son in that shirt and a decent pair of pants for our Christmas Eve dinner. I was envisioning all the holiday pictures with David wearing a pair of his sweat pants and his Mickey Mouse shirt. Again, he surprised me and let me dress him without any fuss.

I regret not taking the pictures of the dinner table which was filled with three kinds of homemade pirogies, stuffed cabbage, borscht, kutja, compote and fish. I usually just show up and my sister-in-law, Ruslana, is the one who cooks all this delicious meal. Her friend asked me tonight when was the last time I made kutja and I couldn't even recall since Ruslana's been cooking the holiday dinner.We all had a nice time and regret that Seth wasn't feeling well to join us.